The Lineage of Immortals (Sanskrit Amaraugha) is the earliest account of a fourfold system of yoga in which a physical practice called Haṭha is taught as the means to a deep state of meditation known as Rājayoga. The Amaraugha was composed in Sanskrit during the twelfth century and attributed to the author Gorakṣanātha. The physical yoga practices have a pre-history in a tantric Buddhist milieu but were here adapted for a Śaiva audience. The treatise explains how Śaiva yogis move kuṇḍalinī, unite Śakti with Śiva, and achieve Rājayoga. Three hundred years later, the author of the Haṭhapradīpikā incorporated almost all the Amaraugha's verses on Haṭhayoga into his own work, which became a definitive exposition of physical yoga. The study of the Amaraugha reveals not only the genesis of Haṭha and Rājayoga but also the creation of the most influential model of Haṭhayoga in the early modern period.
The Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha of Goraksanatha (Institut Francais de Pondichery, 2024) presents the first critical edition and annotated translation of the Amaraugha, as well as a later recension, called the Amaraughaprabodha, with an introduction that explores the profound significance of both works for the history of yoga.
Jason Birch was awarded his doctorate at the University of Oxford and is a Senior Research Fellow of the Light on Hatha project, hosted at SOAS University of London and the University of Marburg. He is co-Director of the Yogacintāmaṇiproject at the University of Massachusetts Boston and an Associate Researcher of the Suśruta project at the University of Alberta. He has published articles on the history of Haṭha and Rājayoga, and co-authored a book on plastic surgery in the Nepalese version of the Suśrutasaṃhitā. From 2015 to 2020, he was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow of the ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project. He is a founding member of the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies and the peer-reviewed Journal of Yoga Studies.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions
Nishant Kumar, "Religious Offense and Censorship of Publications: An Enquiry Through the Prism of Indian Laws and the Judiciary" (Routledge, 2022)
Tony K. Stewart, "Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination" (U California Press, 2019)
Laurah E. Klepinger, "Transnational Yoga at Work: Spiritual Tourism and Its Blind Spots" (Lexington Books, 2022)
Ching Keng, "Toward a New Image of Paramartha: Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha Buddhism Revisited" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Divya Cherian, "Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in Eighteenth-Century South Asia" (U California Press, 2022)
Andrea Acri and Paolo E. Rosati, "Tantra, Magic, and Vernacular Religions in Monsoon Asia: Texts, Practices, and Practitioners from the Margins" (Routledge, 2022)
Rethinking Community in Myanmar: Practices of We-Formation Among Muslims and Hindus in Urban Yangon
Ezra Rashkow, "The Nature of Endangerment in India: Tigers, 'Tribes', Extermination and Conservation, 1818-2020" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Illuminations Episode 3: Divine Technology
Audrey Truschke, "The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Greg Bailey, "The Vinayaka Mahatmya" (Dev Publishers, 2023)
Veena R. Howard et al., "The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy and Gender" (Bloomsbury, 2019)
Rick Repetti, "Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation" (Routledge, 2022)
The UW-Madison Center for South Asia
Monima Chadha, "Selfless Minds: A Contemporary Perspective on Vasubandhu's Metaphysics" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Stephanie Corigliano on TARKA
Justin W. Henry, "Ravana's Kingdom: The Ramayana and Sri Lankan History from Below" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Andrea Acri and Peter Sharrock, "The Creative South: Buddhist and Hindu Art in Mediaeval Maritime Asia" (Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute, 2022)
Ute Hüsken, "Laughter, Creativity, and Perseverance: Female Agency in Buddhism and Hinduism" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Mikel Burley, "A Radical Pluralist Philosophy of Religion: Cross-Cultural, Multireligious, Interdisciplinary" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Ram Dass Here And Now
Wisdom of the Sages
Pilgrim Heart with Krishna Das
Bhagavad Gita
All About Hinduism